


and she keeps me warm

by susanpevensie (steelthighsvoideyes)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Relationship, verdant wind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22561594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelthighsvoideyes/pseuds/susanpevensie
Summary: Sometimes, the quiet moments in the middle of a war are louder than the battles.Leonie tries to cut her hair. Marianne volunteers to help.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Leonie Pinelli
Comments: 11
Kudos: 99





	and she keeps me warm

**Author's Note:**

> marileonie is my lifeblood and it’s about time i wrote them!!! thank you to my dear friend bat for the prompt.
> 
> please excuse any gramma mistakes or typos enjoy!!

Cutting one’s hair is, unfortunately, not as easy as it seems. Exponentially so with a half-blunt hunting dagger, but it’s the only workable blade Leonie currently has. It’s neither broken nor bloodstained from the most recent battle, so Leonie thinks very little of it as she hovers over her water basin and uses her reflection as reference when she starts to cut again. 

Her arms are heavy and ache as she saws at her hair as she would when butchering a deer, but her veins are crackling with adrenaline and a  _ need  _ to do this now. As if suddenly shearing off her hair will take the last 5 years off her shoulders and automatically make her the warrior she wants to be for Claude and his army. 

That’s not to say Leonie hasn’t thought about chopping her hair off before—she’s used to wearing it short, and it’s only grown this much because of neglect and other priorities. She’d have done it sooner or later lest it fall into her face at crucial moments of battle. 

But something about walking back into her tent— alive and caked in blood, gore, and dirt— after their first real battle since the Golden Deer reunion at Garreg Mach made this moment seem appropriate. 

Leonie grunts and exerts more force on the blade until a chunk of red hair is free. It’s by no means a clean cut with an uneven patch remaining, and her scalp is burning from the abuse, but Leonie decides it’s negligible. She’s had worse. As for how it looks, well it’s more about the utility anyway. 

As Leonie raises the knife again to go at the next clump of hair in her fist, she hears a soft gasp behind her. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Marianne says when Leonie turns around, her owlish eyes downcast. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Leonie shrugs and gives the other an easy smile. “No worries. It’s your tent too, after all.” 

Marianne hesitates for a second, then looks up to meet her eyes with a small smile. Though a miniscule gesture, Leonie can see the determination set in Marianne’s shoulders to hold that smile without letting it quiver. 

“Yes. You’re right.”

Leonie nods and turns back around, about to return to her task.

“Wait!” Marianne cries out just as Leonie begins to crudely saw again. The cry startles her enough that she drops her hair from her fist and spins around entirely. 

“What is it?” Leonie asks. 

“I um...you…” Marianne starts, flustered by her own sudden outburst. “You shouldn’t cut your hair like that.”

“What do you mean?” Leonie demands defensively in the way she’s accustomed to when challenged, brows furrowed. “If it’s about the way it looks, I don’t really care about that.” 

“Oh! No, that’s not…” Marianne trails off, then pauses, takes a deep breath, and holds herself up straight. “I mean that I’m worried you’ll hurt yourself more than you need to.” 

Leonie blinks at that. 

“Oh,” she says unintelligibly, feeling foolish for her reaction. And a bit guilty. Marianne has never been one to care for or judge on trivial concerns, but Leonie always seems to jump the gun. She owes Marianne more than that. “Well, I guess it’s the best I can do right now. This is the only knife I have to use.” 

“I can help you,” Marianne replies. “If you want me to, that is.” 

Leonie is suddenly aware of the burning in her biceps and shoulders. She’d bathed, cleaned, and had been checked by Manuela in the healer’s tent earlier, but the fatigue in her muscles persists, and nothing seems more delightful than to relax for a few minutes. 

So she nods and holds the knife out for Marianne. “Sure. I could do with some help.” 

Marianne eyes the knife in Leonie’s palm with some apprehension. Then she perks up, eyes visibly brighter with a childish sort of excitement—an expression Leonie has never seen on Marianne’s face before. 

“Please, wait a few moments. I’ll be right back,” she says before picking up her skirts and quickly shuffling out of the tent. 

Leaving Leonie kneeling on the floor with her heart thumping like a wild rabbit’s, eyes trailing after Marianne as if watching the sun set after it had only just risen. 

She’s twiddling the shorn patch of her hair with her fingertips when Marianne returns. In her hands are a pair of bright pink shears—from Hilda’s sewing kit, Leonie guesses—and a thin but sharp shaving razor. 

“Claude was kind enough to lend his shaving blade,” Marianne says, coming to sit on the floor gracefully beside Leonie. “It should help even out the short hairs.” 

Leonie raises an eyebrow, impressed at Marianne’s thought and resourcefulness. “And Hilda’s shears?” 

Marianne flushes a most delicate rose pink. “I’ll return them before she notices they’re missing. Please don’t tell her.” 

Leonie grins widely and winks. “I wouldn’t dare.” 

At that, Marianne’s flush deepens, and her eyes flit to the ground in embarrassment. Her eyelashes are long and elegant, much like the rest of her, Leonie observes. 

“Um, how would you like me to cut it?” Marianne asks when she finally gathers herself. “Like how you had it in school?” 

To tell the truth, Leonie hadn’t actually given much thought to how she’d prefer her hair to look—the priority at the time had been to just get rid of it. But now that she has the opportunity to think on it…

“Actually,” she starts, “I got to work for this band of mercenaries the last few years. The leader was this woman who liked to wear the sides of her hair really short, like a soldier’s. But she kept the middle longer, and I remember thinking it looked really cool. Maybe something like that?” 

Marianne hums pensively and nods. “Like a bird’s plume.” 

If any other person had said that, Leonie would have immediately rebuked them. A comparison to a rooster or a cockatoo as a first reaction would be a taint on Leonie’s pride. But coming from Marianne, the thought is humbling, endearing. Leonie knows Marianne sees in animals more nobility, kindness, and grace than she does in humans. 

What would have been a raging firestorm with anyone else is the gentle comfort of a candle with Marianne. Leonie doesn’t know how not to be the gust of wind that flickers the flame out, but she desperately wants to try. 

“Yeah,” she finally breathes after realizing she’d fallen silent. “Kind of like that.” 

That ghost of childish excitement flits across Marianne’s lips and dances in the depths of her dark brown eyes. Leonie realizes that they’re sitting close enough that she can  _ see  _ all of that, that Marianne has come to trust her enough to allow her such a privilege. Her breath hitches in her throat. 

“May I?” Marianne asks, tracing Leonie’s hair with her fingertips.

When Leonie nods, Marianne finally threads her fingers through red hair and picks up the shears. 

She works in silence, and, for a few moments, the only sound in their shared tent is the delicate  _ snip snip  _ and strands of hair rustling down Leonie’s shoulders. 

Occasionally, Leonie can’t help but glance in the water basin to see Marianne’s progress. The battle adrenaline has almost fizzled out of her system, now replaced with something almost like giddiness—a feeling not completely foreign to her, but rare all the same. Something close to the buzzing restlessness she’d felt the day Jeralt rode through her village and introduced her to the life and strength of a mercenary. 

“You know,” Leonie begins before she realizes it. “I’ve never really cared much about how I look. It’s never been a priority for me. Things like surviving and training were always more important. But studying at Garreg Mach and seeing all those noble girls...I told myself I didn’t care. That I wasn’t something lesser because I didn’t look like them. Then Hilda tried to dress me up, I felt like I was suffocating inside a costume. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I was somehow...broken. I know I’m a girl. So why did being a girl make me want to crawl out of my skin?” 

She’s spilled more than the rational part of her thinks is wise. But now that she’s started, Leonie can’t seem to stop. It feels so damn  _ cathartic  _ to say all this out loud, like filtering the muck out of pond water so it can be clear and drinkable. 

Maybe it’s a bit selfish of her to unload the past five years without warning. But Marianne says nothing. The only indication Leonie has that she’s listening is the tiny nudge of her fingers behind Leonie’s ear. 

_ Keep going.  _

Leonie swallows. 

“In some ways, I’m glad Edelgard started a war. If she hadn’t, maybe I never would have met Phillipa. The mercenary I worked for,” Leonie muses. “She was like Jeralt in a lot of ways. A strong leader and warrior that everyone admired. But sometimes the men would joke and say she was more beast than woman. That made my blood boil. But Philippa would just chuckle and then break the guy’s nose. ‘Nah, I’m just a woman with knuckles thicker than your skull,’ she’d say. And that was that.” 

She hears Marianne giggle at that, her breath tickling the tip of Leonie’s ear. Leonie practically feels it go bright red. 

“She sounds delightful,” Marianne comments. 

Leonie barks out a laugh. “Yeah, she sure was something. I owe her a lot.”

“What was it like?” Marianne asks quietly. “Being a mercenary?”

Leonie closes her eyes and lets Marianne guide her head as needed. “It was everything I thought it would. Do you really want to hear about it?” 

“Yes,” Marianne replies, the single syllable like a dainty bell chime in Leonie’s ear. 

So Leonie launches into the tales of her exploits with Phillipa’s mercenaries. She keeps her eyes closed and drifts off into pleasant memories that roll off her tongue with ease. Occasionally, there’s a warm tingle across her scalp that follows Marianne’s path with the shaving blade, and Leonie realizes the other is healing any nicks and cuts simultaneously. 

The gentle candle grows into the kindle of a fireplace, and Leonie can’t help but lean into it. 

Marianne listens to her stories silently, but attentively, sometimes breaking Leonie’s narration with a light gasp or laugh. Leonie cherishes those reactions, filing them away as one would coins in a jar for a rainy day. A part of her wishes she can stay like this forever, recounting an infinite amount of stories for Marianne while the war rages on without them. 

The moment of serenity comes to a close much too soon for Leonie’s liking. 

“I think I’ve finished,” Marianne announces and draws her fingers back. 

Leonie opens her eyes and leans forward to check her reflection in the water basin. What she sees makes her heart soar. 

She traces the closely shaven sides of her head, marveling at the care Marianne took to make them even. Then she runs her hand through the longer strands in the middle, down the strip that ends at the bottom of her neck. 

Goddess, she looks so damn  _ cool.  _

“Marianne, this is incredible!” Leonie exclaims. “It’s exactly how I imagined it.” 

Color blooms across Marianne’s cheeks. “I’m glad. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right.” 

She lifts her hand as if to brush through Leonie’s new hair before pausing midair, owl eyes wide with shock, as if she hadn’t realized what she was doing. 

Leonie’s heart sticks to her throat. The little proximity between them is suddenly more evident than ever. 

“What do you think?” Leonie asks tentatively. She’s never once cared for others’ opinions, but, right now, she feels like she  _ needs  _ to know this. 

Marianne hesitates, lips parting. Leonie can see her fight through her instinct to flee and sits very still, barely breathing. She wants Marianne to stay close to her, to trust her instead of giving her cause to retreat like she once had back in school. 

“I think,” Marianne starts after several seconds where neither of them moved. “I think you look rather handsome.” 

And Leonie beams like she’s the sun at high noon, elated and alight with joy when Marianne finally runs her fingers through her hair. 

“Yeah?” she croaks. 

Marianne nods. “Yes. After the war, I’m sure I’ll hear stories of the mercenary, Leonie, with fists stronger than bricks.” 

Leonie can’t help but laugh at that. 

“Thank you, Marianne,” she says as she winds down. “I really appreciate it.” 

Marianne smiles warmly, openly. “It was my pleasure.” 

Though the task is done, neither makes a move to get up. There’s still something palpable in the air between them, and Leonie is suddenly overtaken by the thought that, if she doesn’t address it now, she may never get to again.

“They don’t just have to be stories about me, you know,” she murmurs, looking down at her hands. “They can be about you too.”

“I...don’t think I understand,” Marianne says slowly, softly. 

Leonie glances back up and meets Marianne’s tender gaze with her own fierce, determined one. 

“You can come with me,” she says, rushing the words out before her brain stops her. “After the war. We can make stories together.” 

Marianne’s lips part in a silent “ _ oh _ ” and her eyes widen as she grasps the implication of Leonie’s words. 

“I—I couldn’t possibly,” she stammers. “I don’t think anyone would want to hear stories about me.” 

Leonie reaches out and gently lays a calloused palm over Marianne’s hand resting in her lap. There’s no hesitation in her action—they’ve been apart five years and now sitting in the middle of a war. Marianne deserves her resolve. 

“Make them for yourself,” she says. “It doesn’t matter whether others want to hear them or not.”

At Leonie’s words, Marianne turns her hand over and clutches Leonie’s as if it were a lifeline. 

“You’re the most noble person I know,” she whispers. “I admire that about you.” 

Leonie swallows thickly. “And you make me want to be more.” 

She has no idea who leaned forward first, but one moment Marianne’s lips are on hers, and the next, they’re gone. 

Marianne has bloomed a deep shade of red, but her hand still grips Leonie’s. Leonie can only imagine what her face looks like. 

“If you’ll still have me when the war ends,” Marianne says. 

Leonie nods and squeezes Marianne’s hand. “I would.”

And when Marianne smiles at her, Leonie feels whole and alive in a way battle lust could never satisfy. She could bottle this feeling and get drunk on it over and over again if it were possible. 

Marianne squeezes her hand back. 

“Okay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: [ sunshinejock](http://twitter.com/sunshinejock)


End file.
